Hester ready to hit high gear

Devin Hester could have blamed last Thursday’s mental lapses on the hours he spent at his fiancee’s side, waiting for their son to be born.

“Yeah, I was focusing a lot on the baby all week,” Hester said Monday. “The majority of my focus was there.

“But I can’t blame it on that. I just have to get back into a groove.”

Hester indeed was out of rhythm in the Bears’ 10-6 loss to the 49ers. It started with a false-start penalty. He also slipped on a route, leading to one of Jay Cutler’s five interceptions.

“If I keep my feet, it’s a great pass,” Hester said. “That interception is all on me. It was all my fault.”

Hester was whistled for offensive holding immediately after the false start.

And he was the target on another Cutler interception, but the official was in his path.

“Just a tough situation there,” Hester said. “I had an underneath route, and the official jumped in the way. I was debating whether to go behind him or over him. By that time, it was too late.”

Hester’s struggles were a microcosm of the offensive woes that plague the 4-5 Bears. Cutler turned into a national punch line with his league-leading 17 interceptions, including 11 at night.

The offense as a whole has been heckled for its inability to punch it into the end zone in goal-line situations and for its overall ineffectiveness in the red zone.

“Moving the ball isn’t really our problem,” tight end Greg Olsen said. “The focus is scoring points.”

And Hester, who had been praised for his emergence in recent weeks, suddenly is under scrutiny again.

“That’s why I don’t get too involved in the media or whatever,” he said. “During the weeks that I was having good games, I wasn’t paying attention to the media then because once you have a bad game, it’s back to square one.”

Hester, who leads the Bears with 48 catches for 596 yards, is on pace for an 85-catch season. If he has a strong performance against the Eagles on Sunday night, all that happened against the 49ers is likely to be forgotten.